the question was where are we going to swear in the president of the united states? the congress was meeting in federal hall on wall street. it was a nice looking. the house had the bigger room upstairs, and the house at the president should be sworn in in our chamber, and that was fine except everybody that was in new york wanted to see george washington get sworn in so they could not divide everyone in the house chamber, but upstairs they had a balcony overlooking wall street, so the senate said, upstairs, and we will have the ceremony up here and washington could take his oath on the balcony. those decisions, which were logical, set a precedent. ever since, president has taken their oath more often than not outside and more often than not congress has taken a lead. vice president adams was the president of the senate at the time, and he was a useful player because he had been the us minister to england, and one of the questions was there were not enough seats upstairs, and he said in parliament when the house of commons marches to the house of lords, they have to